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<title> Protocol Theory </title>
<H1> Protocol Theory </H1>

<hr>

We investigated the semantics of basic concepts essential to the
design and specification of protocols, such as these questions:  
What is meant by protocol <i> A </i>
being an abstraction of protocol  <i> B </i>?  What is meant by protocol  <i> B </i>
being a refinement of protocol  <i> A </i>?  
Answers to these questions gave rise to methods that facilitate 
the design of nontrivial, multi-function protocols.  
Our current research focus is on understanding interface semantics between 
modules that are service providers and consumers.  We make use of such understanding 
to develop decomposition and composition methods for protocol engineering.

<hr>

<H1> Selected publications </H1>

        <ul>
        <li> <b> A theory of interfaces and modules I--composition theorem </b>
        <br>
        Simon S. Lam and A. Udaya Shankar
        <br>
        <cite> IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, </cite>
	       vo. 20, no. 1, pages 55-71, January 1994
                <ul>
                <li> <a href = "protocol_abs1.html">
                <b>more info</b></a>
                </ul>
        <li> <b> A relational notation for state transition systems </b>
        <br>
        Simon S. Lam and A. Udaya Shankar
        <br>
        <cite> IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, </cite>
               vo. 16, no. 7, pages 755-775, July 1990
                <ul>
                <li> <a href = "protocol_abs2.html">
                <b>more info</b></a>
                </ul>
        <li> <b> A stepwise refinement heuristic for protocol construction </b>
        <br>
        A. Udaya Shankar and Simon S. Lam
        <br>
        <cite> ACM TOPLAS, </cite> vol. 14, no. 3, pages 417-461, July 1992.
                <ul>
                <li> <a href = "protocol_abs3.html">
                <b>more info</b></a>
                </ul>

        </ul>

<hr>

